In the field of rolling bearings, it is known practice to equip a rolling bearing with one or two flanges provided to isolate, from the outside, a rolling chamber defined between the two rings of a rolling bearing and in which rolling bodies are arranged. JP-A-2000 249 154 thus proposes mounting two flanges on the two opposite sides of a ball bearing. These flanges have a relatively great thickness and their geometry is such that the inner and outer rings of the rolling bearing have to be substantially wider, in a direction parallel to the axis of rotation of the rings, than the rolling chamber, in order to avoid having these flanges extend laterally beyond these rings or having them come into contact with parts placed in the environment of the rolling bearing during use. When it is being mounted on one of the rings, one flange risks tilting about its point of fastening onto the ring as a consequence of a phenomenon called “umbrella effect” which tends to fold back the flange towards the outside or the inside of the rolling bearing. With the equipment known from JP-A-2000 249 154, this umbrella effect is all the more damaging when the edge of the flange opposite to its means for fastening onto a ring is oriented towards the outside of the rolling bearing, to the extent that it extends laterally beyond the rolling bearing when the flange is not at right angles to the axis of rotation of the rolling bearing. On the other hand, if the geometry of the flange is modified, the latter risks coming into contact with the cage which holds the balls in place in the rolling chamber.
It is these drawbacks that the invention intends more particularly to remedy by proposing a novel rolling bearing with rolling bodies whose flange effectively isolates the rolling chamber from the outside, without the risk of interference with a cage or the rolling bodies arranged in the rolling chamber or with parts situated in the vicinity of the rolling bearing, since the flange does not extend axially beyond the rings of the rolling bearing.